It won't get me rich, but I love buying lots of foreigns by the pound (sometimes kilo lol) and going through them. Since I just got back into collecting I do have many, only 1,586. Or 11.6 pounds lol. So far, 1 silver and the oldest is a Napolean III french one from the 1800s that the date's worn off. Other than that, the oldest is a very crusty 1890 Indian Head Cent. Got another 5# coming, but didn't arrive today so it'll be Monday
If you don't mind an eclectic collection I think that that's a great way to find alot of different stuff. Good luck with your #5's
My goal is a world type collection, but I know I won't get it in lots. But still it's fun. I also buy wheats by the pounds and gonna start doing buffs etc. I just love searching through a pile of coins lol.
That's how I did it when I started to bulk out my collection. Buying them in the UK I would get an awful lot of variety, european and rest of the world. But now I'm down to missing individual years it's a lot tougher. Best of luck and don't forget to post any rare or unusual finds.
Spain 5 Pesetas 1975(77) DDR is my best so far. Even though I haven't louped all of them, 6 doubled dies so far
I did that too but I'd find some sellers' selection would be better than others. Some I'd get mostly coins from the last 20 years, and half of them would be from Great Britain or Trinidad and Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago's entire coinage must be for sale on eBay). I'd like to get more variety and more from Africa, Asia and the island nations, but those are few and far between in bulk lots. It seemed to me like after I got a few bulk lots it was mostly the same thing over and over.
So far I've bought from 2 sources. The first was heavy in eastern block, the second heavy in British. Both had a Chile 1934 5 Centavos lol
That's the problem - they're always heavy in something. There's somewhere around 200 countries in the world. If I am buying a pound of coins, I don't want 80 percent to be from the same 10 countries, and that's what always happens.
I have found some of the greatest results walking into little antique shops and asking about world coins (non-U.S.) many places have anywhere from several to 100 coins, and most of the time there is interesting stuff
I love doing world coins by the pound! I can't afford to do it often, so far I've only done it twice. If I could afford it I'd do a pound a week. (where I would store all these coins I have no idea!) This past Christmas, I recieved three pounds of assorted world coins. I got over 200 new coins for my collection, and I got 17 new countries. (I currently have 100 total countries or issuers in my collection!) For example if a country changes names I list it as two seperate places. Malaya and Malaysia for example...I have one coin from each, it's the same basic country, just changed names and ruling style. But, since the name is different, it counts as two countries in my collection. Of those 100 countries in my collection, I would say probably 70 to 75 of them would not be in my collection if not for buying just two simple world bulk lots. Since I love everything I don't mind it being heavy in something. If I can build a date run, that just makes it better! And any duplicates become my trade stash (although I have not made any trades yet). The first batch I did was heavy on British, the second was heavy on South Korean. I really enjoy the British coinage so I thought that was great, and for the South Korean my collection went from one coin, that came in the first batch, up to 16 in one day! I am not building date sets of modern British two new pence and South Korean 100 won
I only really mind the repeats when it's the same year. For some reason, I have about 20 Hatian 10 cent coins all from either 1958 or 1975. There were a lot of other examples like that. I don't want 20 of the same coin. But really it's a pretty good deal when you can spend 10 bucks including shipping and get half a pound of coins or more. I just need to figure out how to get rid of my doubles.
My next 5 pounds should come tomorrow. This'll be the second time I've ordered from this source and the first was heavy in south american and British. But at $40 it's still a good deal.
OK, got it in. I'll keep track of quantity from what countries and post the results. So far it looks British and South American heavy again.
Ok, 628 total coins with 120 of them Great Britain. 104 of those are the Decimal pennys. Oldest is a 1947 Farthing. Oldest of all I'm not sure of yet. I also had 56 Mexico 10 Centavos, KM# 547 1992 to 2008
Wow, that is a lot of decimal pennys! Do you have a full date run on them yet? The lots I have done have not had that much repetition. Edit to add: One of these days I will save up and order one of the 25 pound deals that are out there. I wonder how many coins and how many different types I will get by doing that? I know that each lot of 25 pounds is expected to give you so many coins, it would more than double my collection! That would probably give me a huge trading stash, too.
I already had 55 of those decimal pennys, with 24 different dates from 1971 to 2007. About to go through the new ones and see what I got.
KM# 915 1971-1981 Missing 1974 KM# 927 1982-1984 Missing 1983 KM# 935 1985-1991 Missing 1989 KM# 935a 1992-1997 Complete KM# 986 1998-2007 Missing 2006 KM# ??? 2008-???? Have 2008 The last one is a new reverse design.It has the edge of a shield with a partial harp and a partial lion on it. So I'm only missing 4 circulation issues, 1974, 1983, 1989, 2006. Plus 2009 and 2010 lol.
I buy 10 pound bags of foreign coins off of craigslist and local auctions for dirt cheap. I have yet to find anything extremely valuable , but it is fun to look up each coin in the Krause catalog and learn something new. The challenging coins for me are the asian coinage like "ten cash" , trying to figure out which dynasty it was from by the different symbols and characters. The author of "The International Encyclopaecic Dictionary" gave me this book and it has helped immensely with translating words & numbers between multiple languages.
